The Talented Timothy Taylor

The former leader of Poor Righteous Teachers, Wise Intelligent has been out of the hip-hop scene for much of the decade since his first solo album, working as a community organizer in his native Trenton, NJ. The fierce, politically-minded The Talented Timothy Taylor sounds like Wise Intelligent hasn't been away at all: besides a deeply Kanye West-like production featuring a manipulated soul sample and a placid, jazzy piano that sounds entirely up to the minute on the opening "Another Chance @ Life," Wise Intelligent comes out of the gate spitting tricky, multi-line rhymes that both scan perfectly and build into a devastating portrait of inner city Trenton. In interviews surrounding the album's release, Wise Intelligent explains the album title as a throwback to the golden age of hip-hop, when what mattered wasn't the size of one's marketing budget or ego, but one's talent behind the mic. Throughout The Talented Timothy Taylor, Wise Intelligent uses modern-day production styles and his own, undiminished, old-school flow to create a rapprochement between hip-hop's present and past, and the combination works perfectly.